Broomfield-based Ball Corp. produces two out of every five aluminum beverage cans used in the United States, and the northern Front Range has one of the highest concentrations in the country of beverage industry workers filling those cans.

Across the Western Slope and in Weld County, petroleum producers are laying down hundreds of miles of steel pipe. And Vestas converts tons of steel into hulking wind turbines at plants in Windsor, Brighton and Pueblo.

Aerospace manufacturers along the Front Range are building rockets and satellites with imported metal, and more than 100 construction contractors specialize in putting steel into bridges and buildings.

President Donald Trump has said the tariffs will resuscitate the country's diminished steel and aluminum industries, boosting jobs and bolstering national security by ensuring adequate domestic supply. Notably, steelmaking once was a key industry in Pueblo, which voted for Trump in 2016 despite being a Democratic stronghold.

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"As a leading manufacturer of beverage and food cans, we urge President Trump to exclude aluminum can sheet and tinplate steel for beverage and food containers from the tariffs that he announced will be imposed next week," said Renee Robinson, director of corporate communications at Ball, which produces about 100 billion cans a year globally.

Robinson said those products have no national security applications, and tariffs will drive up costs for consumers.

Colorado's beverage industry is especially at risk. Metro Denver and Fort Collins have the fourth-largest employment base in the beverage industry in the country with nearly 10,000 workers, according to the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

Colorado has four can manufacturers employing nearly 740 people and 235 breweries employing 5,500 people, notes state labor economist Ryan Gedney. There is also a Centennial company, Stolle Machinery, that makes the machines and systems that produce the cans.

Colorado - with 300 craft brewers, as well as massive MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch production plants - will feel the pain of paying more for aluminum, said Bob Pease, president and CEO of the Brewers Association, the Boulder-based group representing craft brewers.

"Not all members can, so it's not going to impact all 300, but I'd estimate a third to a half do put their beer in cans," he said. "Nationally, aluminum cans make up 28 percent of package production volume for craft beer. Glass is still the preferred packaging, but aluminum is gaining a fair share of the market - and it's growing."

MillerCoors, the nation's second-largest brewing company and with operations in Golden, tweeted Thursday that it buys as much aluminum as possible domestically, but "there simply isn't enough supply" for beverage makers, and the tariff will "likely lead to job losses across the beer industry."

"Increasing our costs of goods immediately will obviously make it more difficult to continue to grow, particularly grow jobs and invest in our community. And eventually, it may reach the craft beer lover by raising the price of beer," said Chad Melis, marketing director for Oskar Blues Brewery, the Longmont brewery known for popularizing cans among the craft beer industry.

Oskar Blues doesn't even use bottles. Melis said that 50 to 65 percent of its beer is canned; the rest is sold as draft beer. The company also helps smaller brewers can their beer with the Crowler, a miniature canning machine that lets smaller brewers can on demand. With the tariff adding an estimated 20 to 24 cents per case of 24 cans, Oskar Blues expects this to add an annual cost of $400,000.

"The essence of the Oskar Blues brand is we're the original craft beer in a can and never putting beer in bottles," Melis said. "We're significantly invested in cans, I'd say, financially and emotionally. We aren't looking at investing in bottles."

Oil and gas producers, who put thousands of miles of pipe in the ground in wells, gathering lines and pipelines, also are opposed to tariffs.

"Tariffs are extremely costly, and completely contrary to President Trump's energy-dominance agenda. We urge the president to consider that these tariffs will kill more jobs in manufacturing and energy than they will supposedly protect in steel," said Western Energy Alliance president Kathleen Sgamma.

A spokeswoman at wind-turbine maker Vestas said the company is confident it can compete and meet market demand even with the tariffs, but added that it won't be immune to rising steel prices.

"Vestas remains committed to our U.S.-based manufacturing operations, including our significant steel sourcing from U.S. steel companies, and continues to have a global footprint and supply chain that help us mitigate and hedge against this kind of risk," said Chanté Condit-Pottol.

The state's near record-low unemployment could make things worse for some companies if steel and aluminum prices rise.

"We are already faced with an extremely tight labor force, so I believe that any of our primary metal manufacturing companies would be challenged to find the workers that they need," said Patricia Silverstein, the chief economist at Development Research Partners.

But not everyone in the state stands to lose if domestic steel production ramps up due to higher tariffs. Pueblo, once the dominant steel producer in the region, could benefit - the city is home to a domestic mill owned by Evraz North America, which declined to comment.

Colorado also is home to two molybdenum mines, the Climax site, near Leadville, and the Henderson site, near Empire. Those mines, owned by Freeport-McMoRan, produce a metal critical to the hardening of steel. Lakewood-based General Moly has an interest in two Nevada mines.

Details are still pending on what will be included or excluded from the tariffs. Will steel from Canada, a major source of U.S. imports, be exempt? Will can-sheet aluminum be exempt?

”We hope … the president still has time to right a wrong and exempt can-sheet aluminum from tariffs. Can-sheet aluminum does not have national security implications," said Pease of the Brewers Association. "That's what we've been lobbying for since last June."

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